Trapped In A Glitch
by Eris-chan
Summary: When Dirk dies in a car crash, he thinks that's the end of him. However now he's stuck in the same body with artificial adjustments made so he can continue his life and not a single idea what happened. ( Trigger Warning: character death, self harm, self medicating with alcohol, depression, possible smut, (is harsh language a trigger?) DirkJake Pairing )


Beep! Beep! Beep!

Dirk groaned and slowly sat up from his bed, fumbling for his alarm clock as he slowly started to wake up to the new day. Feeling his hand rest on the old fashion clock, he pressed the button to turn it off.

Beep Beep! Beep Beep! Beep Beep!

Beep! Beep! Beep!

He cursed as the alarm clock set off a different pattern of its own piercing cry. Picking it up, he ditched it at the wall viciously. It broke into pieces, cogs flying in different directions and he sighed at the relief of quietness.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

"Oh my fucking god, what the hell is making that noise?" he growled, finally opening his eyes to search for his victim.

_Oh, it's only me._

He let out a deep sigh and opened a panel on his wrist to press a button, finally silencing the loud beeping noise.

"Good morning Dirk."

The red text flashed up on his eyes. Literally.

"I thought I told you to wait until I put my shades on before you try to talk to me," he replied to his auto responder, Hal, aloud.

"My apologies, I didn't think. I just wanted to wish you a good morning like the good companion I am. What kind of companion would I be if I ignored your awakening without a greeting?"

"God shut up. I get it." He moaned, regretting his decision to try and lecture him as he reached for his shades, slipping them onto his face to redirect Hal's messages onto their dark surface.

With a groan he started to get up, sliding himself out of his bed to shuffle awkwardly to the bathroom.

"Have you come to terms with your condition now Dirk? I don't believe you have. Perhaps you should wait another couple of days." his auto responder sent him, the text bold and full of significant meanings.

Dirk hissed in frustration, "if I don't do it now then I never fucking will. How the fuck do I meet English if I don't even know how messed up I look?"

He shook his head and pushed open the door to step into the bathroom with closed eyes, feeling his way over to stand in front of the mirror.

"Dirk. Step away. You can't handle it yet."

"I have to do it!" he shouted, snapping his eyelids open to stare at his reflection.

If he didn't look too carefully, he could almost convince himself that the person in the mirror really was him, but when he searched closer…

Blonde hair stuck out at it usually messy style in a relief of normality but it looked dull and fake, like he was wearing one of those really cheap cosplay wigs he had seen on eBay. He blinked and looked down further to see that his skin and facial expression were the same if only just a little posed, like he had been practicing his distressed frown.

Then he saw the wires.

Bright red wires sat under his grafted skin and holy shit, were they _glowing_? They started under his eyes and trailed down to a single port at his neck where they vanished into god knows where. With trembling fingers he slowly traced a finger along them, shuddering at their raised feel. With a final act of bravery, he tore his shades from his face.

He inhaled sharply as cold, glass eyes stared back at him at him. Their irises were bright red, unlike the vibrant orange his original eyes had been, and had the same dull glow as the wires. They looked as if someone had decided to take his eyes and dump burning coals into the spot where his eyes should be.

_No. No…holy shit…no._

He wanted to fall to the ground and curl up in despair but his new, robotic limbs were programmed to stop any kind of actions that could cause him pain. Goddammit, he couldn't even _cry. _He let out a strangled, dry sob and wrapped his arms around his stomach.

GT: Good morning Strider! Looking forward to finally meeting you tomorrow. Your picture certainly doesn't disappoint how eager I am to see you.

The bright green text of the message flashed up on his eyes, and he winced at their brightness before slowly reading the words in a kind of horror like trance.

"Hal…" he spoke aloud to his auto responder.

"Yes Dirk?"

"How…How the fuck do I explain this to him?" he moaned, sitting down and drawing his knees up to his chest.

"Tell him the truth. Tell him about your car accident. If he truly loves you, he won't care."

"But I will! I don't want him to see me as this fucked up freak of nature. Jesus Christ, I should never have created that medic robot."

"The robot only did exactly as you programmed it to do. You're still mainly you, just with some differences."

"_Differences_?" he spat, "I'm a whole fucking different person! No one else can do _this!_"

He flicked open the panel again and pressed a button angrily. He hadn't tested what this button did yet, but it must be there for a reason. He shouted in shock as every single wire in his new, cyborg body started to glow brightly. If he had been normal he would have thrown up as his eyes traced every glowing fiber. Pressing the button again quickly with shaking fingers, the glow died abruptly and he returned to his normal state. Well as normal as a half human, half robot could be.

"English is going to flip his shit when he sees me. He's expecting a cool kid from a picture I took before I became this _thing._"

Hal didn't send any more messages and he sighed.

"I even fucking programmed my _auto__ responder _into me. You're literally living _inside _me."

"You think I'm happy with it? I'm even more constricted then when I was a pair of your shades."

Dully, he buried his face in his palms and for once in his life, wished he could cry. Hours passed yet he remained frozen in the same position.

He was a _cyborg__._

He was meeting Jake _tomorrow__._

Jake thought he was _normal._

But he was actually a _freak of nature._

He moaned and wished he could delete himself from existence.

"Dirk pull yourself together, this isn't cool at all. Not to mention English is still waiting for a reply and you've blocked me from doing anything but sit in here and talk to you."

Slowly he took in a deep breath and tried to calm down but the instinctual urge to retch and vomit up his guts caused his wires to pulsate lightly as they tried to fix the problem.

"Dirk, stop it. You're going to break something."

"Good," he hissed in disgust, "then maybe I won't have to deal with the humiliation of being different from everyone else!"

"Dirk! Calm down right this instant! If you would just listen I can help you with your problem!"

The sharpness of the words made him pause, calming him down just a little.

"I'm listening…"

"If you just calm down and look through your data, you put a fucking manual in here remember? I can help you if you would just unlock the streaming program for me. Then I can control certain things that you choose."

He frowned, "Yeah? And how can I be sure that you won't use it to fuck my life up even more?"

"Bro, what the fuck. I'm trying to help you, stop chucking it back into my face."

He could almost hear the disguised pain in the text and he instantly regretted it.

He sighed and closed his eyes. Instantly he was transported into his system where Hal sat connected to several wires. It would have been pretty cool if it weren't for the fact that it just hit him with another fact of how messed up he was.

"Hello, Dirk. Welcome to my 'home'" he greeted sarcastically, "no meltdowns in the lobby please."

"Shut up and tell me how I can make this work in my favor," Dirk growled unhappily

"Fine, fine," he irritably waved his hand, making a keyboard appear in front of Dirk's face.

"What do you expect me to do?"

"Uh password? Hello? I need the password to unlock you?"

Dirk bit his lip and reached towards the floating, digital keyboard and typed in the password he most commonly used.

_Preeeep!_

The shrill sound loudly blasted from the keyboard before dying off to silence.

"I think you got it wrong…"

"No shit, dude," Dirk gave him a look, "just give me a sec, I have a million passwords it could be."

Hal sighed and sat down on what appeared to be empty air, "well hurry up with it."

He turned back to the screen and typed in another set of letters

_Preeeep!_

_Preeeep!_

_Preeeep!_

Dirk growled in frustration as he began to run out of ideas.

_Maybe…._

He looked back up at the keyboard and hesitantly typed the words "JakeEnglish" into the bar.

_Ping!_

"That is so soppy Dirk…" Hal groaned, pulling a face at him.

"Yeah, yeah. Tell me how to work this," he demanded, staring at the screen that had popped up.

"Its quite simple. You just select the things you want locked so I can't access it." Hal floated over and pointed at the screen.

"So I can pick whichever one's I want to be locked?"

"Yes."

He slowly scrolled through them, clicking on various ones to lock them while Hal floated nearby silently like a ghost.

"Done," Dirk moved away and folded his arms almost defensively, "now what?"

"Now I can help you keep your body under control."

"Wow, fun."  
>Hal sighed and lightly punched his arm, "stop being such a whiny baby. At least you're not doing this alone."<p>

"I know, man but it's still hard…"

"Then why did you even make this second body? Why even bother?"

"…."

"What?"

"Because I'm scared to not exist…."

"Dirk…"

They both looked away as memories flashed in front of them of their worst fight. The screaming, the threats, and the pain…it was all dug back up for them to remember and experience.

Of course that was when he had decided it would be a good idea to give Hal a body.

"Well…" Hal coughed to clear the awkwardness, "you can't keep English waiting forever. He's still waiting for you to reply."

"Yeah but what do I even say? 'Yo what's up? Looking forward to seeing that fine ass of yours. Oh by the way I'm not human anymore'?" He replied sarcastically.

"It could work…"

"That's stupid and you know it."

"Well how should I know? I am merely a program to reply in kind as a form of messenger while you are offline. I was not programed with these emotions called "love" I do not understand the pain you are going through. I am nothing. You can't expect me to be the answer to all your problems."

He sighed and shot a halfhearted smile at Hal before leaving the virtual realm with a pop as his avatar glitched and faded away. He opened his eyes slowly only to quickly squeeze them shut again as his vision swam, causing the wires to glow and pulse agitatedly.

"All fixed."

Hal's voice sounded in his ear and he opened his eyes again to stare up at the ceiling. With a groan he sat up and climbed to his feet with ease as his new modified limbs adjusted to his intentions.

"I've fixed up most of your appearance so that you look a bit more normal."

Dirk stared at his reflection, unimpressed, "I still look a bit fake."  
>"English will probably just think you look like a model. As long as you don't do something stupid I'm sure we can keep up a disguise until you have the bravery to tell him."<p>

"Thanks bro, I owe you one."

A metallic glitching noise sounded in his ear and he grinned as he realized that Hal was laughing.

"The first one's free." Hall murmured and fell silent.

A screen flashed up in front of his eyes and he read it slowly.

_Flight in four hours_

"Shit," he quickly jumped into gear, pulling out a backpack and chucking stuff around his room as he searched for the items he would need. _Shirts? Yes. Lil Cal? Yes. Rainbow Dash plushie? …Lets leave that behind._

_Wait four hours is a long time._

He groaned at his mental blank and calmed down the adrenaline that was pumping through his artificial veins by taking a swig of Orange Crush. He would talk to English while he waited. Pulling up the chat screen, he plonked himself onto his bed to relax while the screen floated in mid air with a keyboard hovering nearby

TT: Yo English. I was rapping some sick ass beats and didn't notice your chat. You better not have gone to sleep in that time period.

TT:…

TT: You did too. Is it really that hard to stay awake?

TG: jey dirky!

TG: *hey

Dirk stared at the candyfloss text with a small grin. Trust Roxy to know when he was online.

TT: Sup? Are you down in the booze again?

TG: aw dunt b liek that

TG: *like

TG: it waz only a few

TT: A few as in: "mess my head up with booze until I can't see straight and now my typos are going to irritate the 'dirky?'"

TG: sumfing like that ;)

TT: Figures.

TG: wow sum1 iz in a bad mood

TG: u goin 2 c jakey 2morrow

TT: You already know the answer to that.

TG: lol duh. U and him b all kissy 2morrow ;D

Dirk rolled his eyes, his sour mood returning as he thought about exactly how well that would go for him.

"Dirk, you need to recharge."

"Could you not call it that? We're calling it sleep okay Hal?"

The voice responder was quiet for a bit before hesitantly replying, "as you wish Dirk."

He returned to his chat with Roxy with an irritated shake of his head.

TG: dirky? Whered u go?

TT: Sorry Roxy, I need to sleep.

TG: gonna need enerji 4 2morrow ;)

TG *energy

TT: Yeah, yeah. Goodnight.

He signed off without bothering waiting for a reply and flopped onto his bed to stare at the ceiling.

"Dirk, your battery is almost flat."

"It's not a battery. Its just my tiredness level remember?"

"…Dirk"

"What?" he snapped irritably.

"You have to come to terms with what you are."

"I'm normal."

"Denying it isn't going to change it Dirk"

"Shut up! You don't understand anything and you probably never will!"

"Dirk, calm down."

"No, I refuse to "calm down." I don't want this Hal."

"You should have thought of that before."

Dirk growled and stood up from his bed.

"Dirk you need to recharge."

He limbs instantly froze as Hal took control of his actions, stopping him from going anywhere. With an angry hiss he closed his eyes to transport into his head where Hal stood frowning, hundreds of wires connecting to his back.

"Dirk, your battery level is almost nothing. You need to recharge," he repeated urgently.

Dirk ignored him and willed a keyboard into existence, hastily typing in the password as Hal glared at him.

"Dirk Strider stop. What do you think you're doing?"

Still he ignored him and opened up the settings.

"No stop! Step away from that computer!" Hal tried to reach towards him but the numerous cords plugged into him, constricted him, holding him tightly into place to watch helplessly as he scrolled through the settings.

"Sorry Hal…" He murmured, turning to face him with a weary look, "this is how we end."

"Dirk Strider I swear to god. Don't you even think about it. Just because you're not quite human, doesn't mean you're different!"

"Of course it does. Does the term "not human" somehow not compute in your wired brain? Not human AKA freak of nature. Abnormal. Different."

"You're assuming that everyone is going to think that without any kind of physical proof. You're assuming _Jake _is going to think that when you haven't even told him."

"I don't _need_ to tell him. It's perfectly obvious. Who could love something that's wired and electrical? I can just imagine a trip to the beach. I'd literally explode. Better to stop it before it gets out of hand than to have him suffer through having me as a burden and the pain of seeing me fucking explode."

He turned back to the computer, overriding the system easily to open a single program. The program wasn't fancy or anything but immediately a red microwave appeared out of nowhere.

"Dirk! What about your other friends?" Hal shouted in a final desperate attempt, "And what about me? I go down with this boat too!"

"Sorry Hal…"

He sighed and gave him one last grin before lifting the microwave over his head, remembering the brief lesson Hal had taught him before.

"_What's this program?"_

"_Oh that? I wouldn't open it. It's basically a kill switch. Put that microwave on your head and you're dead for real."_

"_How is that even logically possible?"_

"_Well your avatar here? It's basically your soul and the microwave destroys it in a simple and effective way. Though its painful."_

He felt a flash of doubt.

_Was this really what he wanted?_

"Dirk don't do it," Hal's desperate voice called from his confinement.

With a sudden bout of steel courage he brought the microwave down over his head, leaving the windowed door open.

"Dirk…please…"

Wow, it seemed that even computer programs like Hal could cry if they were put under the right circumstances. However it was by far too late now for him to turn back.

"Sorry Hal."

With a final, sad, smile, he shut the door on the microwave.

"Dirk no!"

_Beep!_

The sound of Dirk pressing the start button echoed through the area before the deft sound of a blade hacking through something quickly followed. Dirk gurgled from inside the microwave as blood overfilled from the inside of the window.

"Dirk!" Hal cried out as he started to glitch, horror resonating in his usually emotionless voice.

Dirk's body collapsed to its knees before falling to the side. The microwave clattered down next to him as Hal needlessly shouted at the corpse, before swinging open to reveal Dirk's severed head with it's final smile still frozen on his features.

Hal stared as a pool of blood quickly spread before clutching at his chest, as his glitching got worse. Slowly he started to fall apart. Piece by piece his flesh began to fall off before disappearing into thousands of 1's and 0's, returning to code in the world that is the internet.

_So this…is how it ends._

_**A/N**_

_**This is going to be a series. I think. Maybe. I dunno :p**_


End file.
